


What Adds to Knowledge (Adds to Pain)

by rosewiththorns



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Courage, Detroit Red Wings, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kneeling, Kneeling Universe, M/M, Memories of Humiliation, Non-Sexual Submission, Overcoming Past Abuse, Trust, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewiththorns/pseuds/rosewiththorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nik helps Valtteri heal. Sequel to "If You Run in Your Thoughts (You Don't Get Anywhere)." Written per reader request. Contains references to past abuse, so reader discretion is advised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Adds to Knowledge (Adds to Pain)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seducerhymeswithdeduce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seducerhymeswithdeduce/gifts).



> This was written per reader request and is a sequel to “If You Run in Your Thoughts (You Don’t Get Anywhere)” although this story is also capable of standing alone. Please be aware that references to past abuse appear in this piece, so exercise caution if this might cause you an inordinate amount of distress.

“What adds to knowledge adds to pain.”—Finnish Proverb

What Adds to Knowledge (Adds to Pain) 

“Are you mad at me, Kronner?” asked Valtteri, his toes curling around the silk pillow he was kneeling on in Nik’s living room, even though he realized it was about as stupid a question as whether the sun shone during the day. Nik had to be furious with that turnover Valtteri had serve up to cost Detroit that evening’s game as the cherry on top the sundae of an absolutely lackluster performance. It was really a question of whether Nik was nuclear with rage or not, and that was hard to discern when Nik was perched on the couch, silent as a raven. Valtteri almost wished that Nik would start yelling at him just so he could stop imagining the bawling out he was sure was imminent. 

“No.” Before Nik had said this single word, Valtteri had been too afraid and too ashamed to glance up at him, but this answer was so astonishing that he found himself lifting his eyes to Nik’s face, which seemed more sad than irate. “I’m not angry at you, just disappointed because I know you can play better than you did tonight, Val.” 

“Sorry.” His stomach knotting like a pretzel as he thought that disappointment cut to the core more than anger, because he was used to wrath when he knelt—used to being beaten and humiliated by Sami, who had captained his team back in Finland —but he had never dealt with this sort of gentle sorrow in a performance that had let the team down when he knelt, Valterri tucked his head back against his chest. It might have been better if Nik had boxed his ears or punched his lip as Sami had been so fond of doing, since then Valtteri would at least have a reason for the pain he felt searing through his heart and the tears pricking like needles at his eyelids. “I’m a pathetic failure of a hockey player.” 

“Don’t talk about yourself like that.” Clucking his tongue like an indignant mother hen, Nik tilted Valtteri’s chin up, so that their gazes—Valterri’s self-loathing and Nik’s stern but still compassionate—locked. “You aren’t a pathetic failure of a hockey player. That’s why I know that you can do better than you did tonight.” 

“Next game I will, I promise.” Desperate to redeem himself and make Nik proud of him, Valtteri widened his eyes earnestly. 

“Good, Val. I believe you.” Nik ruffled his hair, but the affectionate gesture, far from comforting Valtteri, caused the tears poking at his eyelids to begin to trickle down his cheeks like water streaming down the inlets of a rock. “Now just take some deep breaths, and visualize how well you’re going to do next game, not how poorly you did this game. Deep breaths and visualization helps.” 

Valtteri took a deep breath and regretted it when he felt his lungs spasm. As he hyperventilated, the flow of his tears intensified into true crying. Hating himself for being such a baby in front of a teammate, he fought to get his breathing under control and his eyes to stop manufacturing tears like a factory. Unfortunately, this effort and the shame he felt at being such a wimp only made his wailing louder and his breathing more frantic. 

“Shh.” With a soothing sound, Nik grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table and wiped the salt water away from Valtteri’s cheeks with it. 

Valtteri’s breathing slowly returned to almost normal levels at this soft and rhythmic touch. 

Tossing the soaked tissue into the trash, Nik snatched another one from the box and slipped it between Valtteri’s shaking fingers, murmuring, “Blow your nose.” 

Valtteri obeyed and then tried but failed to chuck his dirty Kleenex into the garbage because his eyes were still too moist to see anything aside from blurs. Swiping at his damp eyes with the cuff of his sweater, he muttered, aware that he was a disgraceful wreck, “I don’t deserve to be treated like this.” 

“Like what?” Nik rubbed circles between Valterri’s shoulder blades.

“Like you understand and care about me.” Valtteri bit his lip, because the worst thing about how Sami had treated him wasn’t being thrashed with a belt while being forced to kneel on a plank of nails or having needles stuck in his naked flesh for hours when he was made to kneel on cold tiles, it had been hearing so often that it slipped into his brain as an insidious mantra that he deserved this and nothing better. 

“You’re my rookie; of course I care about you and understand you.” Before Valterri could mumble a protest that there was no “of course” about it, Nik, massaging the nape of Valtteri’s neck, continued, “I wish you would tell me what happened in Finland to scar your soul so much.” 

“I can’t, Kronner.” Valtteri burrowed his face into Nik’s kneecaps, feeling like a prairie dog ducking into its warren. 

“Were you told that if you informed someone about what was done to you that you would be hurt even more?” Nik’s hand was still attempting to knead the tension out of Valterri’s taut neck. 

“Yes.” Although it was the last thing Valtteri wished to remember, he could recall as vividly as if he were living it in the present how Sami had leaned close to his swollen eyes—blacked from Sami’s fists—and hissed, sibilant as a serpent, that this was their secret and if Valtteri ever told anyone about this, he would discover that every torture that had ever been inflicted upon him was a walk in a spring garden compared to the agony he would suffer for being a snitch. Cringing at the memory that felt like a blow, he whispered, “That’s not why I can’t tell, though.” 

“Why can’t you tell, Val?” prodded Nik, giving Valtteri’s shoulder a light squeeze with the palm that wasn’t massaging his neck. 

“I’m so ashamed at what happened, because I must have done something to deserve it.” Valtteri’s lip lower lip trembled even though he was biting with all his might to try to keep it in place. That was yet another item to add to the long list of reasons why he was a total failure at life. 

“You don’t need to be ashamed.” Nik stroked Valterri’s hair away from his sweaty forehead. “The only person who needs to be ashamed is the person who hurt you, and you aren’t to blame in any way for anything that was done to you. Sometimes we want to believe that those who suffer abuse are somehow responsible for their mistreatment because it’s easier to imagine that there is a reason for every suffering, but that’s a lie. The truth is that there are some sick psychos out there who get pleasure from inflicting pain on innocents who totally don’t deserve it, so please don’t abuse yourself by taking any of the blame that whoever hurt you deserves one-hundred percent.”

“How can you know I didn’t deserve it when you don’t even know what it was?” Valtteri’s fingers clenched around the pillow beneath his knees. 

“I saw how much you flinched at even mild touches when you came over here.” Nik continued to caress Valtteri’s hair. “Anything that makes a person flinch like that is abuse, pure and simple. I don’t need to hear what happened to you to know that you were abused. I don’t want to judge your account. I just think that talking about what was done to you could be therapeutic in itself, and I could help you heal better if I know more details about how you were hurt.” 

“Talking about it will cause me a hell of a lot of pain.” Trying to dislodge the memories of Sami’s cruelty, Valterri shook his head so forcefully that it was a miracle he didn’t give himself whiplash. 

“I know.” Nik’s tone—heavy as an anchor sinking too the bottom of the sea—sounded as if he did really know and wasn’t just saying so due to a lack of creativity to invent some other reply. “Not as much as keeping it bottled up inside you will, though. Please trust me on this, Val. I’m here to support you no matter what, and I always want to help you, not hurt you.” 

Taking a deep breath as he gathered his courage around him like a wool blanket, Valtteri explained, starting slowly but rapidly picking up speed as the dam inside him broke, releasing a torrent of torment he had tried for so long to conceal from the world, “His name was Sami, and he was the captain of the team I played for back in Finland. I knelt for him, but not like I do for you. He’d black my eyes if I dared to look at him, and he wouldn’t even bother to invent a reason to box my ears or bloody my lips with his fists. He’d make me kneel on nails while he belted me or on cold tiles, stripped naked, for hours as he poked needles into my skin. Whatever he did to me, he would always hiss in my ear that I was worthless and deserved what he was doing.” 

“You aren’t worthless and you don’t deserve what he did to you.” Nik bent over, as if to shield Valtteri from a harm that had already been done to him, and whispered this in the horn of his ear. “You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, and thank you for being strong enough to tell me what happened to you.” 

“I’m not brave,” sputtered Valtteri, as sobs shook through his body and he turned a tear-streaked face up to Nik. “I hate myself for being such a damn coward and letting him hurt me.” 

“You’re a good, courageous person, and you should love yourself.” Nik cupped his quivering chin. “The person who should hate himself is that bastard Sami, who treated you with such spite, but I suspect that he doesn’t have the conscience to realize how despicable what he did to you was, and you aren’t a coward for enduring what he did to you. He’s the coward for abusing someone he was supposed to be guiding, and you are the survivor because you’re overcoming what he did to you.” 

“You’re helping me.” Valtteri didn’t want to take credit for being brave when he felt as if he had all the backbone of a slug. 

“I hope so. We’ll get through this together.” Flashing a grin for the first time that night, Nik tapped Valtteri’s nose. “Now one thing I know is that nothing chases away painful memories like hot cocoa. Would you like marshmallows in yours?” 

“Yes, please.” Valtteri’s mouth quirked into a tiny, answering smile. “Lots and lots of them.” 

“Some cocoa with your marshmallows coming right up, then.” Nik chuckled and patted his hair as if he were a puppy. “Plop yourself on the sofa and search the channels for anything decent that might be on the TV. In a few moments, I’ll be back with your cup of marshmallows.”


End file.
